Welcome to my astronomy blog, I dedicate myself to the simplest form of amateur astronomy which requires only portable equipments.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Mars opposition

Got no Mars image for this Mars opposition, since the Mars is out of sight from inside my home this time.

I got a chance to walk to a nearby playground to try tonight, this is exactly the setup which I tried last night at home.

First of all, G106 + TG-SP II cannot support a C5 well enough. At prime focus, i.e. 1250mm, the image of the Mars shaked and will not settle down after 2-3 seconds, that include focusing. And it becomes very sensitive to balance as well, the slow motion control knobs simply will not react if it's not well balanced, another sign of overloading. I need more than the bundled counter weight for the C5 with webcam + barlows, I used the battery pack for this purpose.

Secondly, the setup is too low on the ground, it would be better if I could take a star diagonal. Finally, a Rigel Quick Finder will be better as well.

Everything took 10 minutes to setup, so many wires and things to connect.

Lastly, I only managed to capture a single short clip at prime focus. Really not enough patience for this setup to do higher magnifications. I've brought a 5x BTW... grin...

Finally, here's what I got:

yes, just an exposed shot... it only proves that I pointed to something non-steller, a total failure.